Friday, November 24, 2006

Two Great TED-talk videos

As many of you might know, TED stands for Technology-Entertainment-Design. The TED conference is an annual one held in Monterey, California. As the introduction video says "TED is a preview of heaven".

These are truly inspiring talks from a range of disciplines - science, music, sport etc. Starting from first 1984 session which included the "public unvieling of the Macintosh and the Sony Compact disk", TED does truly continue to inspire.

Below are two statistics' videos. I showed the first five minutes of the following video to my class this week and they liked it. Even the ones who hate statistics liked it :). The talk is by Prof. Hans Rosling of the Karolinska Institute who "brings global data to life". IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE WATCHING THIS, DO SEE IT TILL THE 5:15 MARK AT LEAST.

The second one was thanks to Sandeep who pointed me to it. Another very nice (what else from TED) one. This is by Prof. Peter Donnelley of Oxford who "explores the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics, and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials".